compare & contrast

“But what, at least in modern times, I think one most recurrently hears about the curiously-productive-though-ailing poet or painter is that he is invariably a kind of super-size but unmistakably ‘classical’ neurotic, an aberrant who only occasionally, and never deeply, wishes to surrender his aberration." -- J.D. Salinger, "Seymour: An Introduction"

“People speak of the material flames of hell. I do not explore this mystery, and I fear it, but I think that if there were material flames, truly people would be glad to have them, for, as I fancy, in material torment they might forget, at least for a moment, their far more terrible spiritual torment. And yet it is impossible to take this spiritual torment from them, for this torment is not external but is within them. And were it possible to take it from them, then, I think, their unhappiness would be even greater because of it.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

oh, oh, maria, i have a good idea! why don't you write another draft of your story? i bet it will be better than the other 21 drafts.

50 Short Stories

Here are the latest 50 short stories I have read or re-read.

* Love
** Love Love

1. The Dead - James Joyce
2. The Tattooer - Tanizaki
3. Portrait of Shunkin - Tanizaki
4. Camp Cataract - Jane Bowles
5. Lichen - Alice Munroe
6. How to Become a Writer - Loorie Moore
7. Walkers Brother Cowboy - Alice Munroe
8. Bullet in the Brain - Tobias Wolff **
9. A Christmas Memory - Truman Capote **
10. The Killers - Hemingway
11. A&P - John Updike *
12. You Were Perfectly Fine - Dorthy Parker
13. Harrison Bergeron - Kurt Vonnegut *
14. The Cathedral - Raymond Carver *
15. Adams - George Saunders *
16. The Girl on the Fridge (etc) - Etgar Keret
17. My First Fee - Issac Babel **
18. I Bought a Little City - Donald Barthelme
19. A Summer's Reading - Bernard Malamud
20. Guy de Maupassant - Isaac Babel *
21. We Didn't - Stuart Dybek *
22. Netherlands in Water - Jim Shepard
23. Prelude - Katherine Mansfield
24. Daughters of the Late Colonel - Katherine Mansfield
25. The Snow Queen - H. C. Anderson
26. Never Marry a Mexican - Sandra Cisneros
27. Goodbye, My Brother - Cheever **
28. Torch Song - Cheever
29. The Sandman - ETA Hoffman *
30. The Use of Force - WC Williams
31. The Daisy Dolls - Hernandez *
32. Sonny's Blues - James Baldwin **
33. Barn Burning - William Faulkner
34. The Bishop - Chekhov
35. Lady with Lapdog - Chekhov **
36. The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street - Gallant *
37. The Amish Farmer - Vance Bourjaily **
38. 1/3 1/3 1/3 - Richard Brautigan *
39. Water Liars - Barry Hannah
40. Akhnilo - James Salter
41. The Liar - Tobias Wolff **
42. Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story - Russell Banks
43. Who, Me a Bum? - Luisa Valenzuela
44. A Perfect Day for Bananafish - JD Salinger **
45. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters - JD Salinger *
46. Proto-Scorpians of the Silurian - Jim Shepard *
47. Signs & Symbols - Nabokov **
48. Returned - Salvador Plascencia
49. The Story of a Scar - James Alan McPherson
50. The Third Prize - AE Coppard

WISDOM

READ: the short story Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin (even if Go Tell it on the Mountain made you want murder yourself), additionally read everything JD Salinger wrote (even if you dislike Catcher in the Rye, though I happen to not dislike it) esp A Perfect Day for Bananafish (short story) and then Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters (novella?).

“If there is an amateur reader still left in the world – or anybody who just reads and runs – I ask him or her, with untellable affection and gratitude, to split the dedication of this book four ways with my wife and children.” – JD Salinger, Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction Dedication

“Creole began to tell us what the blues were all about. They were not about anything very new. He and his boys up there were keeping it new, at the risk of ruin, destruction, madness, and death, in order to find new ways to make us listen. For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn’t any other tale to tell, it’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness.” – Sonny’s Blues, James Baldwin

revolt

In an effort to ignore the fact that I should be reading and writing fiction, I've recently purchased the following books at ridiculously low prices at half.com:

The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch
New Selected Poems: Mark Strand
The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke
Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov
A New Selected Poems: Galway Kinnel
Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945 - 1975
Collected Poems: Edna St. Vincent Milay
Final Harvest: Emily Dickinson
Collected Poems: Philip Larkin

I was a book!

Very very proud of my Catcher in the Rye book halloween costume, made w/the help of my housemate's excellent exacto skills.

After a post-Halloween recovery day, I was feeling pretty good this morning, even dyed my hair red for kicks and giggles... then came the sore throat, runny nose. NO!

Drinking: soda, tea, more tea, hot toddies, orange juice, seltzer. Casting a wide net with my liquids.

Must: finish reading this novel, do other things on my To-Do list.

HAHA

"What are you writing? Short stories? Didn't you write those in, like, fifth grade? That would be like in graduate school if I were doing addition and subtraction."

expanding my horizons

Variations on Toast: english muffins, grilled cheese, french toast

too much education in the field of english

Mom: I read Olive Kitteridge.
Me: It's a book of short stories, right? About the same characters?
Mom: No, it's a novel.
Me: But that was the big thing when it won - what? - the Pulitzer? That it was a short story collection for once.
Mom: Well, it was all the same characters. Like different bits and pieces of their life.
Me: So, like vignettes?
Mom: Honey, what the hell do I know about vignette?
Me: I don't know.
Mom: Yes, it has the flavor of vignette...

writing as if in a bunker. running low on provisions. no more fruits, no more vegetables, no more toast. surviving on tea and cheerios.